Thanks to my dad for telling me about this article in yesterday’s Observer sports section about mixed race sportsmen. There’s lots of pointless hand-wringing about the phrase “half-caste”, but it’s interesting otherwise.

During the rise of Tiger Woods and around the time this hit the headlines I used to joke with a colleague who was a lightweight rower that the only hope for whitey now was to invent more sports like rowing where your parents had to be rich enough to get you into the right school to participate. The double-page spread in The Observer includes an invented and absurdly talented all-star mixed-race English football squad in the bottom right-hand corner.

Meanwhile, despite Agbonlahor, Aston Villa revert to being crap. Come to Villa Park, Becks. You know you want to.